Crying Wolf
by CampionSayn
Summary: Adopted from the forums, this is a one-shot prelude to the episode "Cry Wolf" from Phantom Girl's perspective. A rather dark pathway down, but well worth the journey into it. Apparent PGxTW.


Title: Crying Wolf  
>Summary: Adopted from the forums, this is a one-shot prelude to the episode "Cry Wolf" from Phantom Girl's perspective. A rather dark pathway down, but well worth the journey into it. Apparent PGxTW.<br>Warnings: Spoilers for Cry Wolf and some other episodes, as well as slight OOC behavior from Timber Wolf; but that's to be expected from the general feel of this fic.  
>Disclaimer: Like I really own anything. Don't sue me, I don't have any money.<br>Dedication: To Dranzer's Inferno. After all, this was plot bunny you put into the center, it's only right that you get a percentage of the credit.

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><p><em>-:-<br>There is nothing the matter with me. I am quite well.  
>-Pride and Prejudice.<em>

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><p>The vase with the seven shadows of magpies in Brin's room is broken. Little shards of glass litter the floor like stars fallen from the heavens sent down to Earth for no other reason than to imbed themselves in the carpet, wait a time undetermined by the universe and then burrow their ways into someone—most probably Timber Wolf's—sensitive skin; sharp biting and fleeting and then returning pain the only sign that they are there should someone not spot the damage of the empty shelf with flowers now dropped and rotting upon it in stagnant water still in this small moment in time.<p>

The night allows for silence in the Legion hallways and the sound of the door to Timber Wolf's room moving back and forth, unlocked, was what drew the daughter of the President to this place.

This is the third time and there is a feeling solidified in her gut like heavy, bone and flesh scorching lead feeling her up from her stomach only to grow outwards in pathways through her nervous system.

Quickly moving in and shutting the door behind her—she will not find Brin again until morning, she knows—Tinya's face stays blank as she moves, in a daze and quiet, numb, to pick up the glass. Her palm is intangible in movement downwards, but she feels the glass in her palms as they come back upwards; white and black figures of broken and shattered magpies rest along the lines of her palms that tell of her life, her attitude, her supposed destiny that Brainy called rubbish when she had visited Zarok and come back again, giddy about the whole thing. The wetness clinging to the shards from the water meant to keep the flowers alive makes her skin cold and she flinches when all of the pieces of glass are collected and some of the flowers drop from the shelf to the ground; both give a sort of sucking noise with dribbles of the water.

Sighing, she deposited the glass into the little wastebasket by Brin's bed—the blankets somewhat torn and thorn about like a small whirlwind had come about within the room's walls—and moved to pick up the flowers.

Why was this happening? Was she the only one that noticed Timber Wolf's strange and now unnerving behavior at all? She supposed she must be the only one to notice, because everyone was still asleep in their beds and she had woken for no reason aside from a chill running over the whole of her body and a memory of pieces from her sleep of howls in the winds and scratching of claws at the doors.

Perhaps this was a part of his life just beginning to surface? Saturn Girl had said that in the forests the others had brought Brin back from, he had looked and been…much different and, worse, in a way, than he had been once he joined the Legion. Feral and angry with no words, but intelligent. Maybe this was all natural and the others had noticed, but she just had to make a big deal out of it because…

Because, she was afraid. Not of him, no, she had never really been afraid of him, even in the beginning when she had assumed him to be a chauvinist jerk and instead he turned out to just be a chivalrous young man. She was afraid _for_him.

Before now, he had never broken things or yelled at someone for no reason like he had at Cosmic Boy—even if he had so deserved it—or destroyed flowers in his room that she never could understand the beauty in until they were no longer pristine and beautiful sitting in his room and making him happy, but lying in a puddle of murky water, so obviously crushed under foot, footprints leading from them, a slight circle around the room and then faded into nothing after a few steps from the door.

She really needed to know, to find a way, to help him.

Taking a heavy breath, she tossed the shredded and squished flowers into the wastebasket with the glass, their feather light weight eclipsing them like a shroud of just dead sinew over broken and fractured bone. She salvaged some of the flora—it didn't feel right to just throw them away when they were only a little bent or torn, they could still be beautiful, even if only to her—and held them carefully to her chest as she left the room and went looking for Brin or, at least, a vase for her own room. The little orange and white flowers would at least be an appreciated second place prize for her own room if she couldn't find their now mysteriously vanished owner.

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><p>Forty-seven minutes of looking throughout the complex—with her powers it was fully possible for her to check the roof, other Legionnaire's rooms, the men's bathroom (something she did not enjoy in the least, no thanks to the urinal that looked like it could give one tetanus just by looking at it), the basement, Brainy's labs and of course, the kitchen—had left her feeling wanting and rather depressed with herself. Not one trace of Brin, not a single sign, nor print, nor abrasive and needless smash in the wall or flooring and the sun was due to come up in a good three hours.<p>

Hovering for the kitchen again, just to check, just to see and maybe look about for that vase for the flowers, Tinya felt her whole body hurt a little with the yawn that came up to remind her she was supposed to be sleeping, she had to be awake for duty in four hours—and this was of course only relevant to her sleep if Brainy didn't decide to wake them all early for something incredibly needless.

The light was on. A little flickering, no doubt from the fridge and a little funnel of light lit within Phantom Girl. She scurried quickly into the place that had been empty and quiet as the dead just twenty minutes ago. Maybe Brin had decided to make a midnight run to the store and gotten lost when buying sugar and other stuff for his baking…

Rounding the corner of the hall and through the door (near cracking her hip on the arch of a doorway) she felt the beginnings of a smile upon her lips in greeting at the big torso and muscle of a back deep in the open fridge, rummaging around for something.

"Brin! I've been looking— "

The back, upper torso, and whole of the person in the fridge—making it impossible to identify them, what with their form blotting out the light from the spark and pitiful thing of a bulb in the unit—backed out at her sudden voice that no doubt was quite a horrid shock in the wee hours of the morning. In turning around, the person became easier to look upon with the light allowed to travel and encompass the both of them. The light shone on Phantom Girl's rapid deflation as well as disappointment in her features, and shone on Superman X with his teeth clutching around the rim of a soda bottle and both hands holding tight a set of buffalo style drumsticks wrapped in plasti-wrap, annoyed very apparently.

"Oh," she sighed, shoulders sagging and whole body seeming to shrink under the other's green/black gaze, "Sorry, Kel, I thought you were Brin. You haven't seen him today—_tonight_, have you?"

Moving over to the counter, the Superman clone deposited (spat) the soda bottle out of his mouth and responded in his usual tone of hard-ass performance coach/"I am the night" Batman impersonation voice, "It's four in the morning, what makes you think I should even be seeing _you_at the moment?"

"Wishful thinking, maybe," she replied with her usual sarcasm, fingers kneading along the stems of the damaged flowers still braced to her chest, "But, I should probably save that for some other time. Did you see him in the last forty-something minutes? Hear him roaming around? Something?"

"No," he said with finality, setting one of the drumsticks on the counter so he could rip the wrapping from the other, exposing it just long enough for him to take a huge bite out of it and make her flinch in half-hearted disgust.

She sighed for what felt like and probably was the fiftieth time that night and moved for the cupboard under the sink where she knew Brainy kept some vases that most times he used to measure out some ingredients from his lab when the beakers were shattered thanks to one of their other teammates or Shrinking Violet when the Coluan had behaved in a particularly rude way towards her.

Bringing up a small one that was an odd combination of colors that reminded Tinya of Timber Wolf, she set the flowers inside and got some water from the sink.

Kel, not one for talking really, but a little curious at why the pale young woman was awake when he had been the only one to raid the kitchen at this time almost since he had been brought into the Legion, spoke up through the mouthful of chicken, "Why are you looking for Timber Wolf, exactly?"

Her figure and whole of herself seemed to darken at his question. She didn't answer right away, finger leafing through the leaves and plucking off one unsalvageable leaf after another. A time passed so long that he thought she wouldn't bother to answer him, but then her voice came out and it sounded…he wasn't sure of what to call it. He had such little experience with social norms that for all he knew, he could be wrong, but it seemed as though life had seeped out of her since previous he'd seen her.

"Have you noticed how he's been…different lately? Like his headaches and the blackout a few days ago? His agitation?"

"I just thought those were a part of his personality," a try, a lark at a joke, but that had a mean backlash as she stopped paying attention to the flowers and was glaring at him like some Puritan a thousand-some years ago at a witch or a blasphemer.

"It's not funny, Kel-El," she snapped through teeth and a light, quiet rage slithering at the edges of her voice, "I'm really starting to worry that something's really wrong here! He keeps tearing up his room and though I know I'm probably just being silly, I can't help thinking that he might hurt himself…or someone else."

The tall Kryptonian tilted his head at her, taking another bite out of his drumstick and speaking once it was swallowed, "Have you spoken to him or someone else about it?"

She blushed shamefully at the question, head down and eyes closing, "No, just to ask you if you'd seen him. I don't even know if I should talk to the others. I keep hoping he'll sort this out all on his own."

The clone shrugged, uncapping the soda and drinking (delighted) from the bottle, "Well, he probably will. From what I've seen, and I will deny it if ever questioned, he seems to have a pretty good perception of himself and others. I think if he really needed help, he'd ask for it. Just give him time."

Some little part of Phantom Girl disagreed with Kel, but with nothing else to go on but good intentions, she nodded, picking up the vase and moving for the door.

"I'll give him time," she said, mostly to herself, but perhaps to Kel-El as well as she disappeared down the halls like her namesake, "I just hope it won't take too long."


End file.
